Toxic Shale Drilling Wastewater Threatens Top Oil Fields, Texas Agency Warns

A Texas agency overseeing 13 million acres of state land is warning that toxic waste fluid from shale drilling threatens to contaminate oil wells in North America’s most prolific crude basin.

The General Land Office of Texas, which was founded in 1836 and generates billions of dollars for public schools by leasing land to oil companies, said plans by Pilot Water Solutions LLC to add three wastewater disposal wells in the Permian Basin near New Mexico would damage its nearby oil reserves.